Home >> Science & Nature >> Nature

When to Hunt Morel Mushrooms in the Ozark Mountains

Mushrooms are one of the few popular food plants that are still widely found in the wild, and the distinctive honeycombed morels are among the year's earliest mushroom finds. Also known as sponge mushrooms, morels grow in much of North America, including the Ozark Mountains.

Time-Frame
- Morel season begins in early spring -- "with spring rains, an increasingly warm temperature, and trees beginning to leaf out," according to the University of Missouri's Karma Metzgar. The Missouri Department of Conservation says they can be found into early summer.
Identification
- Three species of morels grow in the Ozarks: common morel (Morchella esculenta), black or smoky morel (Morchella elata), and half-free morel (Morchella semilibera); the common morel is sometimes called "white morel" when young. All have the distinctive honeycombed caps in a rounded cone shape, growing between two and six inches high.
Considerations
- Wild animals love morels as much as humans do; Metzgar warns that when hunting morels, you will be competing with other seasonal foragers, including turtles, chipmunks and squirrels. Morel enthusiast T. Susan Chang also warns that morels are well camouflaged, their beiges, browns, and grays making them "notoriously difficult to find" amid the "leaf litter of early spring."

Nature